


Electric Bluegaloo

by tinymarvels (Captain_of_the_sass)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Hermann helps, M/M, Newt has a rough day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 20:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20570714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_of_the_sass/pseuds/tinymarvels
Summary: It's just some nail polish, okay? Newt can totally put it on- no problem.If his stupid hands stop shaking, that is.





	Electric Bluegaloo

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something from my musings on Twitter

It's one of _those_ nights. Newt spent the entire day on the edge, jittery and anxious and feeling like he was going to vibrate right out of his skin. His brain was full of thoughts buzzing like a swarm of bees as he bounced wildly between being hyper-focused and being utterly distracted by a million tiny details.

Newt gave up, finally, after two hours had slipped by with zero tangible progress. So now he's just sitting in the lab, unable to sleep despite it being ridiculously late at night. His knee is bouncing. He's humming the main theme to the movie _Jaws_. And his nails are scraped up from his nervous biting; the black polish he'd put on a week ago already mostly gone, scratched off in big ugly blotches. He has to fix it, needs to fix it right now, or it'll bother him all night and he'll never be able to sleep because _he will be thinking about it all night_. There's a new shade waiting in his room. He ordered it special online- a limited edition- and has been waiting for the chance to try it. Newt knows how this is gonna go; it's the same every time he tries to paint his nails when he's feeling off balance like this. It's going to be a huge mess, all shaky hands and gloppy strokes, and he'll only end up frustrating himself to the point where he wants to scream. But here's the thing; now that the idea is in his head he has to do it. 

He gets up and beelines straight from the lab to his room, eyes pinned to the floor the whole way. The glances he gets from the few people still awake to roam the halls feel like prickling needles in his skin. Newt wants to shout at them,_ Don't look at me_.

It's a quick trip; in and out and back to the lab. Hermann's room is right next to his and Newt doesn't want Hermann to see him, not right now. Not like this. And he _especially_ doesn't want to risk waking the man up with what will inevitably be some colorful cursing soon enough. A grouchy Hermann is not a friend to anyone.

When he makes it back safe and mostly sane, Newt plops into his desk chair and lines up the polish, remover, and a shitload of Q-tips on the desk. It doesn't take long to not-so-gently scrub away the last bits of black clinging to his nails, then he shakes up the new bottle to get it good and mixed. It goes about as well as he expected. 

By the second nail Newt's hand looks like some kind of Kaiju crime scene; there are slowly congealing blobs of blue all over his fingertips. He fucks around with a Q-tip to smooth the edges but it drags with it a line of polish off the nail leaving a disgusting gooey trail. And god, but Newt can feel his eyes watering. He is _not_ crying. It would be stupid to cry over something like this. But it's frustrating, okay? So fucking frustrating.

"God _dammit_," Newt croaks, throwing the Q-tip down. He'll have to start over. At this point, even if his nails manage to dry _sometime_ in the next thousand years they'll look like he painted them while heavily intoxicated. Not a good look. "Fuck you," he tells the nail polish bottle acidly, "Just fucking- _fuck_."

"Am I interrupting something?"

Newt's head snaps up like a bungee cord to find Hermann watching impassively in the doorway. The curl of shame that unwinds in Newt's chest is suffocating. He's not embarrassed that he likes to paint his nails. Newt doesn't care if other people don't like it; it looks cool. Makes him feel good every time he glimpses the colors on his own hands. But he probably looks like an idiot, covered in blue like a five year-old first discovering the wonders of finger painting. 

"Thought you went to bed?" Newt says, struggling for a light and airy tone. He has a bizarre flash in his mind; an image of himself stuffing all his nail supplies into his mouth and swallowing the evidence. Obviously, that would not work for any number of reasons. Newt's not going to rule it out quite yet, though.

"I was," Hermann answered, "But I heard you returning. You insisted on mumbling to yourself about _staying quiet_ and how you _can't wake up Dr. Sweater Vest_. Then you opted to slam the door on your way out. It was hardly discreet."

Newt is reconsidering his stance on swallowing the nail polish. "That's, uh. That's my bad, man. Sorry."

"Why aren't you in bed?" Hermann asks. He seems strangely calm, and Newt wishes he could absorb some of that peace through sheer exposure, soak it in through osmosis. 

"I can't, I- I have a thing. And I can't- can't sleep, Hermann. Not until it's done." 

Hermann's eyes drift to Newt's supplies then back again.

"I see," he says simply. He turns away and Newt thinks he's going to be left alone again, but then Hermann is rolling his own desk chair over to Newt's side of the lab. Gentle hands take the nail brush from him, then Hermann maneuvers Newt's hand until it is resting on his thigh. He begins to paint Newt's nails in neat, steady strokes, occasionally dipping the brush back into the bottle. The metallic blue goes on with a lovely sheen this time, instead of being ruined by fingerprints and gauges.

"Kaiju-themed, Newton? Honestly." Hermann mutters, but there's no heat behind it, no hint of any insult. Mostly, he seems exasperated. And maybe even a little fond.

"Technically it's called Ghost Blue," Newt corrects, "and it's a limited edition. Pretty sick, right?"

"I suppose it's not the _worst_ color," is Hermann's answer, which for him might as well be considered high praise. Newt finds himself smiling for the first time that day, something small and real instead of too wide and too...manic. His mind is finally...not quiet, not completely. But soothed. No longer a flood of rising waters.

"Admit it, you love it." Newt taunts.

"I think I would _love it_," Hermann quotes, "a bit more if it didn't remind me so much of your lab specimens." He finishes off the first hand and gently picks up a clean Q-tip, dipping it into the remover. He lifts up Newt's hand and delicately begins to strip off the excess polish from Newt's earlier mishaps. It isn't perfect- some of the color had dried onto the skin, afterall- but when he's finished Hermann has a distinctly satisfied expression on his face. For a moment he just inspects his work, then Hermann's lips are brushing against Newt's knuckles, sending a shiver through him. 

Newt can feel his face flushing hot, and he opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. Hermann smiles softly.

"Let's start the next one, shall we?"

**Author's Note:**

> Newt's blue nail polish btw: https://twitter.com/GenderfluidNewt/status/1170828427928190977
> 
> find me at @GenderfluidNewt for more nonsense lmao


End file.
